If you live in Princeton, you can count on extended power outages, which means no blogging if my neighborhood has no electricity – almost a certainty.

Here in Princeton, with the combination of Third World infrastructure (i.e., electrical cables not underground, and not enough cell phone towers) and huge number of large trees, most people prepare by mobbing the Princeton Shopping Center, especially McCaffrey’s Supermarket.

Of course, I had to stop by and check ou the place. The parking lot was nearly-full, but I was able to find a spot right in front of Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, and picked up some fuel for my small camping stove. It turns out they had them on sale. During the last power outage, I had stopped at Radio Shack and bought a cell phone recharger for the car. (Call ahead and ask if they have any in stock.)

I walked by McCaffrey’s, which of course was packed. I only needed some powdered milk and a newspaper but decided against it when I saw the lines. It looked like people heading to a Romney rally. Since the store was out of powdered milk, I decided against standing in line for 1/2 hour just to buy a paper.

The most important thing we did, and have always done, is CLEAR THE AREA OF POTENTIAL FLYING OBJECTS. Anything and everything in our yard AND the neighborhood that could be turned into a missile (including that 100lb garden pot you don’t think can fly…it can), goes into the garage.

Most importantly, you must get all your preparations done TODAY.

Once you have that done, stock up on wine, get all your laundry washed and dried, make sure all your battery-powered gadgets are fully charged, and hope for the best.

Our Katy is on Long Island at grad school. She’s never been through a northern version of this (it just rains like the devil in GA) so we’re a little worried about her. Knowing them, they will hunker down in the studios at school and party through the whole thing.